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Safaricom consolidates its lead as telecoms firms dominate top slots

Saturday November 29 2008
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CEO’s Most Respected Company Awards night: Paul Kasimu, group human resources director Kenya Airways (2nd Overall), Peter Arina, chief operating officer of Safaricom Kenya (Overall Winner), and Bashar Arafeh, chief operating officer of Zain East Africa (3rd Overall), pose with their ‘vessels.’ Photo/WILLIAM OERI

Strong brand presence and innovation in an intensely competitive market helped Safaricom maintain the respect of the region’s chief executives for the second year running.

The telecom giant was named East Africa’s Most Respected Company at a gala dinner at the Kampala Serena last Friday, where results for this year’s survey were announced.

The company shrugged off stiff competition from Kenya Airways, which took the second overall position and prior to Safaricom’s current dominance, had won back-to-back accolades for the same award in 2005 and 2006.

Another telecom company, Zain, with operations in three of East Africa’s five countries, came in third, signalling the growing strength of the sector across the region.

In the country category, Safaricom again emerged winner ahead of Kenya Airways, while Equity Bank bagged the second runner-up slot.

MTN’s operations in Uganda and Rwanda came out on top in their respective markets, but the surprise of the night was Precision Air, which won the Tanzania country category ahead of IPP Group and Vodacom in that order.

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Coming behind MTN in Uganda were Mukwano Group and Zain, while in Rwanda, Bralirwa Breweries came behind MTN, with Serena coming in third place.

Speaking to The EastAfrican after being named winner, Safaricom chief operating officer Peter Arina attributed his company’s unchanged position as the region’s most respected to its focus on meeting customer needs.

“We’ve won again because we have been consistent in our relations with the customer. The customer is key and to remain top in this sector, you have to get that part of the business right,” said Mr Arina, who also underscored the fact that the telecommunications sector, particularly in the developing economies, is growing extremely rapidly, explaining the dominance of Safaricom, MTN and Zain in the winners’ line-up.

“This is the era of technology and no industry is growing faster in the emerging markets than the telecoms sector. It is growing fast because we realise that mobiles are more relevant to these new markets than they were in the developed world, which already had fixed lines,” he added.

The awards, organised annually by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the Nation Media Group, this year featured 108 companies.

PWC Kenya country leader Charles Muchene told The EastAfrican that the awards are not a beauty contest but an incentive for companies to grow their profiles, as those that win, strive to stay at the top. 

This is true for Safaricom and MTN, which have maintained their top spots in their respective countries, but industry captains say there are new forces to watch out for, particularly those that are new to the winning bracket, namely Precision Air and Kenya’s Equity Bank.

The 2008 awards come with a changed format that has eliminated industry categories in favour of a focus on the region as a way of encouraging competitiveness on a bigger scale.

Mr Muchene said that new EAC entrant Rwanda was included in order to drive the respect and appeal of businesses beyond the original three East African member states.

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